was doomed from the start, because insofar as Nancy
was concerned, he could never hope to live up to his brother. And it is true that from the July day Mark drove off to Canada,
his handsome face, by virtue of its enforced removal, suddenly seemed to be everywhere in that house. From the kitchen countertop
next to the television, and Nancy’ bedside table, and the mantel in the dining room, versions of Mark smiled out at us, a
constant reminder that he was not where he should have been. Mark had always been an easier child than either of his siblings:
wholesomely athletic, even-tempered, a favorite of all his teachers. At Wellspring he had majored in political science, and
would have graduated cum laude had the disaster of the draft lottery not interrupted his otherwise effortless ascent. But
it had, and now he was living in the most tenuous of exiles, a fugitive who would be jailed if he even dared to come back
to his mother’ house for Thanksgiving. As if to craft for himself an identity more in keeping with his new outlaw status,
he grew his hair long; sent back snapshots of himself, scrawny and bearded, that made Nancy weep with pride. “He looks almost
holy,” she’d tell me. “Like Saint Francis, or Saint Blaise.” For Nancy, draft dodging amounted to a kind of martyrdom.
Today, when the saga of the draft dodgers is talked about at all, it is usually as a sort of sidebar to the greater drama
that was Vietnam itself. In 1969, though, the fate of these young men troubled the American conscience at least as much as
that of the soldiers who were starting to return from the war maimed or dead or with pregnant Vietnamese wives in tow. And
nowhere was this more the case than on Florizona Avenue: After all, of the twenty-four houses on that street, three had sent
sons to Canada, whereas none had sent sons to Vietnam. Their affluence protected Nancy and her neighbors, allowing them the
luxury of worrying about children who were safe and well-fed in row houses in Vancouver or Toronto instead of bleeding on
the fields of battle. At least this was how I saw it. I never dared voice this opinion to Nancy, who would have considered
it treasonous, and thrown me out of the house.
Ernest, by contrast, understood, and to some degree shared, my skepticism. Although he distrusted Richard Nixon, and loathed
Kissinger, he had also inherited from his immigrant father a patriotic belief in America as a land of possibility whose principles
it was a citizen’ duty to defend, and therefore he could do no more than tolerate Mark’ flight to Canada. At heart he was
a deeply conformist man, his Freudianism of an old-fashioned and narrow variety that inclined him to regard all types of atypical
behavior as pathologies for which it was the physician’ duty to seek a therapy. And what was more nonconformist than a son
who had not only broken with his country but broken the law? Or a wife who stormed out of dinner parties whenever the host
happened to say something with which she was in political disagreement? For in the wake of Mark’ departure, Nancy had taken
up the mantle of his radicalism, and now, rather than hosting faculty wives teas, she organized petition drives for a variety
of antiwar groups. Ernest would come home to find mobs of hippies parked in the living room, eating brownies and discussing
protest strategies. Her outspokenness offended both his natural tactfulness and his abhorrence of what he called “scenes"—and
now she was making them all the time. For instance, one afternoon at the faculty club, Bess Dalrymple, the elderly and soft-spoken
wife of the retiring history chair, made the mistake of blithely quoting her husband’ opinion that the draft dodgers “were
no better than deserters and deserved to be shot.” Nancy, eavesdropping at the next table, leapt up and let the poor thing
“have it with both barrels,” as she put it—barraging Mrs. Dalrymple
was concerned, he could never hope to live up to his brother. And it is true that from the July day Mark drove off to Canada,
his handsome face, by virtue of its enforced removal, suddenly seemed to be everywhere in that house. From the kitchen countertop
next to the television, and Nancy’ bedside table, and the mantel in the dining room, versions of Mark smiled out at us, a
constant reminder that he was not where he should have been. Mark had always been an easier child than either of his siblings:
wholesomely athletic, even-tempered, a favorite of all his teachers. At Wellspring he had majored in political science, and
would have graduated cum laude had the disaster of the draft lottery not interrupted his otherwise effortless ascent. But
it had, and now he was living in the most tenuous of exiles, a fugitive who would be jailed if he even dared to come back
to his mother’ house for Thanksgiving. As if to craft for himself an identity more in keeping with his new outlaw status,
he grew his hair long; sent back snapshots of himself, scrawny and bearded, that made Nancy weep with pride. “He looks almost
holy,” she’d tell me. “Like Saint Francis, or Saint Blaise.” For Nancy, draft dodging amounted to a kind of martyrdom.
Today, when the saga of the draft dodgers is talked about at all, it is usually as a sort of sidebar to the greater drama
that was Vietnam itself. In 1969, though, the fate of these young men troubled the American conscience at least as much as
that of the soldiers who were starting to return from the war maimed or dead or with pregnant Vietnamese wives in tow. And
nowhere was this more the case than on Florizona Avenue: After all, of the twenty-four houses on that street, three had sent
sons to Canada, whereas none had sent sons to Vietnam. Their affluence protected Nancy and her neighbors, allowing them the
luxury of worrying about children who were safe and well-fed in row houses in Vancouver or Toronto instead of bleeding on
the fields of battle. At least this was how I saw it. I never dared voice this opinion to Nancy, who would have considered
it treasonous, and thrown me out of the house.
Ernest, by contrast, understood, and to some degree shared, my skepticism. Although he distrusted Richard Nixon, and loathed
Kissinger, he had also inherited from his immigrant father a patriotic belief in America as a land of possibility whose principles
it was a citizen’ duty to defend, and therefore he could do no more than tolerate Mark’ flight to Canada. At heart he was
a deeply conformist man, his Freudianism of an old-fashioned and narrow variety that inclined him to regard all types of atypical
behavior as pathologies for which it was the physician’ duty to seek a therapy. And what was more nonconformist than a son
who had not only broken with his country but broken the law? Or a wife who stormed out of dinner parties whenever the host
happened to say something with which she was in political disagreement? For in the wake of Mark’ departure, Nancy had taken
up the mantle of his radicalism, and now, rather than hosting faculty wives teas, she organized petition drives for a variety
of antiwar groups. Ernest would come home to find mobs of hippies parked in the living room, eating brownies and discussing
protest strategies. Her outspokenness offended both his natural tactfulness and his abhorrence of what he called “scenes"—and
now she was making them all the time. For instance, one afternoon at the faculty club, Bess Dalrymple, the elderly and soft-spoken
wife of the retiring history chair, made the mistake of blithely quoting her husband’ opinion that the draft dodgers “were
no better than deserters and deserved to be shot.” Nancy, eavesdropping at the next table, leapt up and let the poor thing
“have it with both barrels,” as she put it—barraging Mrs. Dalrymple
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